


i saw your face stuck in a crowd

by dizzy



Category: Struck by Lightning (2012)
Genre: Caaron MiniBang 2014, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Uh, mind if I sit?" A voice asks. </p><p>Carson looks up. The guy looks his age, more or less, but his fashion sense would indicate a few decades behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i saw your face stuck in a crowd

The train is broken. 

The train is broken and Carson is trying not to have a panic attack because he's never been in this city before and he's going to miss his first day of class and he skipped breakfast because he was certain if he ate anything he'd throw it right back up and his shitty battery on his shitty phone is going to die in like an hour even though it's fully charged because this is the best phone he can afford because his mother forgot to put the child support check in his bank account because she probably popped one too many pills and- 

This is a sign. 

This is a sign that New York was a mistake. It's a sign that his whole fucking life was a mistake and he was meant for nothing more than being the next stellar bag boy at Publix and this city isn't even going to bother chewing him up before it spits him out, it's just taking one look at him, shrugging, and then flicking him away with the tip of a finger like he's something relatively disgusting that it just discovered clinging to its nasal cavity. 

The car is full of two dozen shifting restless people, some grumbling loudly to themselves, some appearing dead to the world, lost in a cocoon of soothing technology, headphones providing a barrier to the rest of the world. The expressions around him run the gamut: exasperated, irritated, stoned. One couple in the corner is making out and Carson really has no interest in seeing how far the boy's hand on the girl's thigh travels. If he wanted to see a show in the city - well, he doesn't, he really doesn't, and especially not this kind of show. 

They aren't even hot. The girl is wearing torn fishnets that look like they came out of someone's dumpster and the guy is wearing skinny jeans that somehow manage to still look baggy on him. 

Carson clutches his bag closer to him and checks his phone again. Two minutes ticked down, and three percent on his battery. He's tempted to throw the piece of shit against the wall, except that might attract some attention and Carson doesn't want attention. Turns out his brashness and give-no-fuckery held more solid in the walls of a high school than in the gaping maw of a city that's much larger and much older and much scarier than he is. 

He's going to miss his first class, and he doesn't even know what that'll mean for him. For his grade, for his GPA - he never missed class in high school because as mind-numbing as the educational system could be, Carson had always been aware that perfect grades and perfect attendance would look good on a college application. Every step of his life, every breath he took for four careful years constructed to lead to college, to pave his way out of Clover... 

And yeah, he hadn't gotten where he wanted, but at least he'd gotten out. 

Or maybe he shouldn't speak too soon. 

Do they kick you out of college for missing your first day of classes? 

(No, his rational brain tells him. 

Maybe you'll be the first, his anxieties screech.) 

"Uh, mind if I sit?" A voice asks. 

Carson looks up. The guy looks his age, more or less, but his fashion sense would indicate a few decades behind. His hair is spiked up in a way that probably took more time than he’d like anyone to realize, and his clothes are something out of the section of Goodwill that even the homeless people sneer at, banana yellow shirt with a tank top smeared the same shade of yellow underneath and jeans a size or two too big. 

Oh, fuck no. No, he is not in the mood for this. The one minute thing he has going for him on this shitty, shitty morning - the one little sliver of mercy granted to him by this city - is that he can at least sit and freak the fuck out without being forced through the excruciating trial of small talk with strangers. Isn't that supposed to be the thing about New Yorkers? Aren't they supposed to keep to themselves? Watch where you're going, keep pace, don't people anyone up, continue on your way uninterrupted. 

Carson seriously considers just saying no, but - but he doesn't. He hauls his bag up further onto his lap, though it hadn't even been on the seat to begin with, and pointedly turns his head to the side. 

_I don’t like it_ , his posture says, _but I can’t stop you._

The guy responds with a bright, “Thanks, dude!” as if Carson had even said anything to begin with. 

Carson resolves to just ignore him. He keeps his eyes firmly averted, and if he pretends hard enough this bozo might just disappear. Yeah, that’s how he’ll handle it. Steady breathing. Find something else to focus on- 

Oh. Wow. Skinny boyfriend is really going for it. Hand under the skirt, and fingers - wiggling. 

Carson jerks his head back around in a less parental guidance needed direction. It puts his eyes right back on you-weren’t-even-born-when-that-fashion-sense-was-relevant douche sitting beside him. 

“Hi,” the guy says, cheerfully popping his gum. 

They’re close enough that Carson can smell the gum. It smells like sugar and artificial… banana. Of course. If Carson could literally hiss at the guy without making a public spectacle of himself, he would. 

As it is, he relies on social cues. His response is nothing but a grunt of acknowledgement. 

Unfortunately, this Breakfast Club reject either embraces or is inflicted with an oblivious nature. “Hope you weren’t in a hurry.” 

Carson rolls his eyes. “No, I just ride for fun.” 

Answering was a mistake. The guy’s face lights up with a huge grin. “Hey, some people do! It can be awesome, like, artistic inspiration! And people watching doesn’t get any better. It’s really fascinating to watch how people isolate themselves in a crowd of people they don’t know.”

“Seriously?” Carson asks. 

“Yep! I’m Aaron, by the way,” Aaron answers, and he’s entirely misinterpreting Carson’s response but Carson is beginning to realize the guy probably knows that. 

“I didn’t ask.” 

“Awesome. So, yeah, people have all these little things they do to warn anyone away from interacting with them. It’s like some kind of mixture of security blanket and privacy barrier. Sometimes it’s a phone, sometimes it’s an iPad or a Kindle, sometimes it’s just headphones that probably don’t even lead anywhere.” Aaron keeps talking and for some reason, Carson keeps listening, too. “But then you get the people who are traveling with someone and it’s like they have this whole illusion of privacy even though they’re surrounded by people, just because it’s strangers all around them. People have all sorts of really intimate conversations, they talk smack about people - things you know they’d never say around their friends - they talk about sex and all kinds of weird shit. It’s enlightening.” 

“So you ride the subway to eavesdrop on people?” Carson makes his opinion of that obvious in his tone. 

“Yes and no.” Aaron shrugs. “It’s not the only reason I ride - I mean, gotta get from one place to another somehow - but it’s like a nice hobby.” 

“Hobby,” Carson repeats, the disdain dripping. 

“Don’t knock it, dude.” Aaron shrugs. “I have to amuse myself somehow.” 

“And why aren’t you like all those other people?” Carson asks. 

The retro look seems to involve a period-appropriate lack of digital attachments. 

Aaron shrugs. “Don’t have anything.” 

"Are you serious?" Carson asks, intrigued despite himself. “No electronics. No phone? No laptop? No ipad?” 

“Hey, my folks didn’t exactly give me time to grab my 3DS before they kicked me out.” Aaron’s tone remains unchanged, light-hearted and open, despite the words he’s saying. 

Carson has no idea how to respond to that. 

“I’m not homeless or anything,” Aaron says. “Anymore. I mean, I wasn’t ever like, really homeless. I just kind of wandered around for a while. And I do have a phone, it’s just dead right now.” 

“Why were you kicked out?” Carson blurts out the question. 

Aaron answers just as bluntly. “Because I’m gay.” 

Carson has met gay people before. He’s sure he has. But they were all in the closet - the boys in high school he used and manipulated, and yeah he gets that they were a couple but they were just stepping stones for Carson. It was easier to pretend they weren’t ...people. 

Scott and Nicholas didn’t feel _really_ gay, because he never had a conversation with either of them about it, never saw them being that way together. It was information he filed away for when it was useful. If he wanted to sleep at night, he could never let himself think too much about what it would be to be in the shoes of any of the people whose lives he made fairly miserable - earned or not. 

But here’s a boy that Carson doesn’t know, someone he has no basis for persecuting, looking him right in the eye and saying it. Carson isn’t sure why he feels so knocked off center, but he does.

He never stopped to wonder if maybe there was a reason they needed so badly to stay in the closet, a reason besides vanity and high school popularity. He never wondered what his threat of outing would actually do to them. 

Maybe one of them has a parent like Aaron’s. Shame twists uncomfortably in Carson’s gut, and it’s a feeling he hates. He locks it down, tucks it away deep, but it draws his scowl out. 

Aaron leans over and reaches into his backpack, pulling out a bag of M&Ms. The bag gets ripped open between his teeth and he spills a few into his hand before popping them into his mouth at once. "Want some?" He asks, bits of colored candy visible against his tongue as he tips the bag toward Carson. 

He should say no. He should go back to his reading. But... 

Carson's always had a sweet tooth. Since he was a little kid shoving Hershey's Kisses into his pocket without knowing there was anything wrong with it, since he discovered that holidays were only as good as their afternoon sales, he's had a weakness for the chocolate. 

He lets Aaron shake a few out and eats them, one by one, as Aaron continues his story. "Yeah, so my mom told me if I couldn't choose to like girls then I could find somewhere else to live and I hit the city." 

"What do you do?" Carson asks, curiosity winning over everything else. He eats another piece of candy. 

"I have a few jobs," Aaron says. "I work at a movie theater in the afternoons. They let me run the projector and I can take home any of the posters I want, it's pretty sweet. Also: free popcorn. I live on that shit sometimes when I can't afford anything else. And I work on campus, I just got this gig at a coffee shop. I fucked up like five orders yesterday but hopefully I can get the hang of it by this weekend. Getting fired sucks." 

Carson can't imagine getting fired from a job. He isn't really known for trying things he doesn't think he'll excel at, though. 

"Sometimes it kind of bums me out," Aaron says, after a pause where it feels like he'd been giving Carson a chance to talk, if he wanted to. "I work on a college campus, so I see all these people coming in that are my age. They've got these whole futures planned out and I think I'm doing good if I know I can pay my electricity bill for the month. 

"Do you live by yourself?" Carson asks. 

"I had a roommate but he split like two months ago and I haven't found anyone else. I mean, you gotta be pretty desperate to want to split a studio apartment. Or… just a New Yorker in your twenties.” Aaron laughs at his own joke. “That's why I got the coffee shop job. Between letting my phone get turned off and this, I should be able to scrape by until I get someone else in." 

"You share one room?" Carson is actually appalled by the idea. His privacy is a carefully guarded thing and he can't imagine ever being so comfortable (or, as Aaron so frankly put it, so desperate) that he'd leave himself that exposed. 

"You do what you gotta do." Aaron shrugs, smile still so cheerfully in place. "I actually love the city. Plus, it'll get better when I turn twenty one or I find someone that can make me a decent fake. Then I can try to get a job as a bartender and they make badass money. This one club was gonna hire me, the girl behind the counter loved me. Said I embodied the spirit of what they wanted. The club has this whole 80s theme, it's awesome. But they found out I was underage and told me come back in a couple years." 

"Why were you there if you're underage?" Carson asks. 

Aaron laughs. "Snuck in, man. Life is boring when you don't take risks." 

"I take risks," Carson says. He doesn't mean to sound defense, but he must. 

Aaron gives him a humoring little smile. "That so?" 

"I moved from California to New York." 

"You leave family behind?" Aaron asks. He's slouching in the seat now, spread comfortably but not encroaching into Carson's space in a manner too offensive. Yet. 

"My mother," Carson says. "My grandmother, not that it matters. She hasn't remembered who I am in a year anyway." 

"Ouch." Aaron frowns sympathetically. "You miss them, though?" 

Carson shrugs. "If I wanted to leave that badly, I don't really have the right to miss them." 

"Wow," Aaron says, and Carson isn't sure how to take that until Aaron adds, "You're good at evasion. I miss my folks. Not even afraid to admit it. I miss them like hell." 

"Even though they kicked you out?" Carson asks. 

"Well, yeah. They're still my parents. I want them to love me. It's like, human nature, you know?" 

"No, I don't." That level of complexity in emotional range is foreign to him. In his life it's much more clear cut: friend or foe, in or out. If someone fucks him over, he doesn't need them anyway. 

"No offense, but I think that's bullshit. If your phone rang right now and it was your mom, you'd be-" 

"Annoyed," Carson interrupts. "Or wondering what she needed." 

"Maybe. But there's gotta be part of you that would always be happy. Maybe just like, five percent of you or something. Some part that responds instinctively. Mother, safe, trust, love." 

"You've never met my mother," Carson mutters darkly. "Safe and trust aren't two words I'd associate with her." 

Aaron just bops his head up and down in a nod. "You're right, I've never met her. I don't know your situation." 

But, the thing is... 

He's kind of right. 

Because sometimes at night when he's laying in his uncomfortable twin bed he closes his eyes and imagines that the noises he hears down the hall are just his mom downstairs, and it makes him feel better. It makes him feel a little less lonely. 

He doesn't say that, though. This guy is a stranger and he doesn't get to hear the things that Carson is barely prepared to admit to himself. 

"I miss my sister, too," Aaron says. "I used to be able to call her, but - phone's cut off. I sent her a few postcards but I don't even know if Mom and Dad let her see them. I'll call her again as soon as I get my phone back. Or maybe, I've been thinking, I could buy one of those prepaid ones. They still cost like sixty bucks though. But tips at the coffee shop might get better now that classes are starting." 

"If you can stop screwing up drinks," Carson says. 

He glances over at Aaron to see if he seems insulted. 

He doesn't. Aaron just laughs. "Yeah. Gotta work on that." 

Silence falls between them. Carson looks at the time on his phone again. 

His first class is almost half over. 

The train shows no signs of moving. 

He sighs, foot beginning to tap against the ground again. He needs to not think about this. He'll just work himself up, and there's nothing he can do. 

"What school?" He blurts out, turning to look at Aaron. "I mean, you said your coffee shop was on a campus. What-" 

"Columbia," Aaron says. Carson gapes at him slightly but Aaron misunderstands why. "I know, right? I'm surprised they didn't check my SAT scores before they even let me apply to work there. That's what I mean by like... kids, I mean, my age, but kids - who have their whole futures planned out." 

"I go to Columbia," Carson says. "And trust me, I don't even remotely have my future planned out." 

"Wow, really? Hope I didn't sound like I was trying to give students there shit. I'm just jealous, really." 

"No, you didn't - I didn't take it that way," Carson says. He's not sure why he feels like he should reassure Aaron, but he does. 

"So what's your major?" Aaron asks. "Wait, no. Let me guess." 

"You think you can guess?" Carson rolls his eyes. 

"Oh yeah, man. You're an open book." Aaron grins in a way that makes it obvious that he's joking. "You look stressed, so must be something pretty hard. Accounting, maybe? Or like - computer stuff?" 

Open book. Right. 

"Journalism," Carson says. "Eventually, at least. English for now. Assuming there isn't some kind of rule that says they just retract your acceptance if you fail to show up for your first day of classes." 

"Shit, it's your first day? Damn. That's some bad luck." Aaron frowns sympathetically at him. 

"Well, I'm sure everyone on here has somewhere they were going," Carson says. "Are you going to be late for work?" 

"I hope not. I only work until like three pm. Short shifts are a bitch to make, but I’m the new kid." Aaron makes a ‘what can you do’ face. “Noon to three today, so I’ve got time.” 

"Why would you go so early?" Carson asks. 

"I can use the internet in the school library. It's supposed to be students only but I hooked up with one of the lab guys and he slipped me a pass for when I'm on campus. When I moved here I had a laptop but I think the battery is busted on it. I want to get it fixed when I get a chance. After I get my phone turned back on." Aaron reaches down into his backpack again and pulls out a granola bar. 

He breaks it in half an offers half to Carson, who takes it. He feels like an asshole for it, but he _is_ hungry and Aaron is offering. "I'm going to have to find a job," Carson says. "But it probably shouldn't involve other people." 

The granola bar is chocolate chip, and it's delicious. 

"Aw, why not?" Aaron scoffs. "I think your broody silence has a charm all its own." 

"Broody silence?" Carson all but snarls. 

Aaron is unphased. "Yep. Broody silence." 

Actually, Carson's been accused of a lot worse. Hell, he's probably been accused of worse in the past week alone. "You're insane." 

"Probably." Aaron crumples up the wrapped and shoves it into the side pocket of his bag. “Keeps life interesting, though. I’m guessing you are perfectly and totally sane?” 

Carson snorts derisively. “Not if you ask anyone I went to school with.” 

“But I didn’t,” Aaron says. “I asked you.” 

“In that case, I think I’m as sane as I could possibly be given the environment I was brought up in.” Carson thinks briefly of his mother, of his grandmother, of his father and mystery somewhere sibling. 

“Hmm.” Aaron toys with a rip in his jeans. “I don’t know. I think you have some untapped potential.” 

“Yes, because someone I’ve known for all of twenty minutes is qualified to decide that.” Carson rolls his eyes. 

“Absolutely,” Aaron insists. “Remember what I was saying earlier, about watching people? I’m totally a pro at this, man. I’m a good judge of character.” 

“Right, like you’re a good judge of what someone is majoring in?” Carson asks. “I mean, accounting?” 

“Hey, college major and character are not the same thing!” Aaron defends his choices. “Tons of people major in things they don’t have personal connections to. I said accounting because you looked like someone who would pick functionality over fun.” 

There is so much in that waiting to be responded to, but Carson has no words to describe the way the observation prickles at him. Aaron is neither right nor wrong; fun doesn’t come into play when he thinks about his future career, but it also wasn’t chosen idly. 

He has a passion for journalism. If he wants to do right by the passion he feels for it, then he has to take it seriously. Fun is for people with less to lose, or maybe just less fear of losing the few things they have. Carson can’t change the facts of his life but he can choose the direction he goes in. He won’t fuck that up for _fun_. 

“By all means, then.” Carson’s voice is dry like kindling just waiting to spark. He’s not sure why this pisses him off so much, but it does. He’s a goddamn enigma, okay? Some asshole on a train doesn’t know him. He shifts his bag closer onto his lap. “Educate me on my character.” 

“I think you don’t have a lot of fun because you aren’t sure how,” Aaron says, voice slow as he gets into it and then faster, confident in a way Carson instinctively hates yet secretly admires. “When I sat down you looked at me like I was going to fight you. So you must have had to do that a lot in your life, right?” 

Carson says nothing. Aaron keeps going. 

“You have a notebook in your bag and I can see inkstains on the edge of the pages, so you write. I mean, you said you were a journalism major, but I think you probably write, too. Like for fun, you know? And that’s kind of a solitary thing. So you probably aren’t the kind of guy who hits the clubs or does karaoke or anything.” Aaron looks him over with an intensity that makes Carson… not uncomfortable, exactly, just… acutely aware that he’s being studied. 

“How does that relate to untapped potential?” Carson asks. 

“Because.” Aaron turns so that he’s actually facing Carson. “Fuck, I don’t know. Sorry. I’m just making up bullshit.” 

“You don’t say?” Carson says with a tempered little sneer. 

“But it does make me just… I don’t know.” Aaron makes a flaily hand gesture. 

“So eloquent,” Carson says. 

“Shut up!” Aaron nudges Carson’s shoulder with his knuckles, like Carson was telling a joke. “It makes me want to know what it would take to make you relax some and laugh.” 

“I laugh,” Carson says. “I relax.” 

“I think you probably think that’s true,” Aaron says. “But dude, no. You’re so tense I could feel it from a mile away.” 

Carson has reason to be tense, he thinks. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Failure is not an option and yet somehow he also feels like it’s imminent.” 

“See?” Aaron says. “There you go, you just - you went somewhere in your head. You were worrying about something.” 

“Yeah, I was worrying about this guy beside me on the train that won’t shut up.” 

Aaron laughs again. “I take it back, I think you are mellowing out toward me a little bit.” 

“What? I insult you and you think I like you?” Carson says in disbelief. 

“What?” Aaron playfully mocks him. “That isn’t true? You’re not pulling my pigtails?” 

“I don’t pull pigtails,” Carson says. “In fact, I try not to stoop to any forms of juvenile playground behavior.” 

“We all do lots of things we don’t try to,” Aaron says. “I think if you really weren’t enjoying this conversation you’d do like everyone else does, and ignore me.” 

“Fuck, was it that easy? I could have just ignored you?” Carson sighs. 

Aaron laughs and slumps down more easily against Carson. “You’re lucky I find assholes kind of cute.” 

“Well, if you’re gay, I’d say you’re the one that’s lucky you find assholes cute.” 

Aaron’s laugh is louder, loud enough to get them a few dirty looks. “Oh, that was good. So what about you? Girlfriend?” 

“Emma Watson hasn’t returned my calls yet, so no.” 

“Why her?” Aaron asks. 

Carson shrugs. “She’s intelligent. I find intelligence sexy.” 

“You would.” Aaron’s smile is fond. “So… what about boyfriend? Don’t tell me, you’re waiting to hear back from Daniel Radcliffe, too.” 

I don’t- I’m not-” Carson starts, immediately uncomfortable. It’s not the whole gay thing that makes him feel that way; it’s the whole attributing any kind of label involving any kind of sexuality to himself thing. 

But the words I’m straight don’t fall off of his tongue readily, either. He’s always had too much other stuff to focus on. Besides perfunctory jerking off to keep urges satisfied, he just… hasn’t cared. And no one else has cared, either. It’s not like he’s ever had people beating his door down - or beat anything else of his, for that matter. 

Aaron is genuinely the first person to ever ask him, much less in so casual a way. He realizes he’s taking entirely too long to answer, and that just intensifies the discomfort. 

“It’s cool,” Aaron says, voice soft. “If you just don’t want to answer. Or don’t know. I mean, you’ve got time, dude. You’ve got plenty of time to make up your mind. Or change it. Or make it up and then change it again. That’s the awesome thing about shit like that. It belongs to you, you own it. You know who you are.” 

“You say that like it’s easy,” Carson mutters. 

Aaron nudges his arm. “Hey, look at me?” 

There’s no reason for Carson to actually do it… except that he does. Aaron’s eyes meet his and Carson immediately wants to look away, but Aaron’s hand grabs his and squeezes. 

He’s never had his hand held before, not by someone that wasn’t family. 

The train starts with a jolt that nudges him into Aaron’s side. “Oh-” he says, momentarily shocked. 

They’ve been stuck for over an hour. They’ve been talking for over an hour. Carson can’t actually remember the last time he had a conversation with anyone that lasted this long. Calls home to his mother are perfunctory. His advisors just want him gone as soon as possible. 

And friends? 

Yeah. 

Right. 

But an hour of random talking with a boy he’s never met before and Carson feels like he’s buzzing on it. It’s the same feeling he used to get after he’d walk away from victorious encounters with his classmate, but with no tinge of guilt to dampen it. 

He’s completely missed his first class in this new school, and an hour ago he thought it was the end of the world, but… strangely enough, he doesn’t care that much anymore. 

There are no more words exchanged between them, but he doesn’t take his hand back from Aaron until the train doors open. 

Ten minutes later, they stand on solid ground facing each other. People rush all around them, pissed off and harried, but they’re close to a wall and mostly ignored. 

“So,” Carson says, glancing toward the stairs. He needs to go. He can probably make that second class. “I guess I’ll-” 

“Wait!” Aaron is visibly nervous in a way he hadn’t remotely been before. It’s such a startling difference that Carson actually stops his retreat to stare at him. Aaron almost seems surprised by that. “Um. Can I just - I hope this isn’t too much, I mean you can totally say no - but I wanted to ask you-” 

“You can have my number,” Carson says quickly, snatching a pen from the side pocket on his bag and grabbing Aaron’s hand. He has to push up the sleeve of that stupid yellow jacket to have enough space to write on. 

He’s faced down high school bullies without breaking a sweat, but now his fingers tremble slightly as he grasps Aaron’s fingers and writes out the digits. 

Aaron doesn’t say a word the entire time Carson is writing them. When he looks back up, Aaron is grinning again. He seems much more like the boy on the train. “Actually, I just wanted to know your name.” 

Embarrassment swoops low in Carson’s stomach. “Fuck. Okay, well, you can just forget-” 

“No, hey-” Aaron grabs him by the arm. “I don’t want to forget anything. Like, this whole past hour, I don’t want to forget any of it. And I definitely don’t want to forget this.” 

He raises his hand, eyes catching on the numbers. His smile gets even bigger.

“Oh,” Carson says. 

”Yeah,” Aaron answers. “I mean, this is even better. Look, I’ve gotta get to work, but I’m using this. As soon as my phone gets turned back on - so using this. Or maybe I won’t have to. Columbia, right? You could always just drop by and see me… coffee shop on campus, remember?”

“I remember.” Carson says, and then glances over his shoulder again. He really does need to go. He waves with less smoothness than he’d like (so sue him, it’s not like he has practice with this) and then stops a few feet away to call out, “It’s Carson, by the way.” 

Aaron turns and walks backwards, huge grin on his face. There’s almost too much distance, but he still hears it when Aaron says, “Until we meet again, Carson.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to reblog this fic on tumblr, you can find it: here. 
> 
> But more importantly - [don't forget to give Val some love](http://i-wanna-be-a-klaine-ship-ranger.tumblr.com/post/95401184130/my-art-to-mandys-fic-for-the-caaron) for that amazing fanart!!


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